The £500 IKEA bicycle that could change our view of cycling

If the Ikea bicycle launched this summer has the same effect on our transport habits as the furniture giant has had on the interior design of British homes then we could be in store for a Swedish-inspired cycling revolution.

The low-maintenance, unisex Sladda bike features a sleek appearance, belt drive and a ‘click system’ that allows riders to quickly and easily add accessories including racks, bags and a trailer. The design has already bagged a “Best of the Best” Red Dot Award.

Ikea set Swedish design studio Veryday a brief to produce a bike that requires little maintenance, is environmentally sustainable and well-priced. Rumour has it that the Sladda will go on sale this August for a little over £500.

The Ikea revolution took off following a 1996 ad campaign that called on Brits to ‘chuck out the chintz’. It worked. In our droves we threw out our fussy furnishings and transformed our attitudes to design. In the same year, the company gave each of its 9,000 employees a folding Ikea bicycle as well as 15 per cent subsidised travel tickets to encourage more to use public transport to travel to and from work. The Ikea-branded folding bikes were presented to the staff at the company’s annual Christmas breakfast event.

It might sound naive to suggest that Ikea can influence cycling to the same extent, but who knows? The Tour de France, and its visit to Britain a couple of years back, saw bikes splashed across front pages, but while positive cycling stories are few and far between and always welcome at the top of the news agenda, was the reinforcement of our obsession with cycling as predominately a sport a help or a hindrance?

When Bradley Wiggins triumphed at the Olympics, there was much talk of the ‘Wiggins Effect’ a phenomenon that promised to get the country back on bikes. But while Wiggins became a symbol of Britain’s successful sporting year, did the ‘Wiggins Effect’ truly inspire people beyond the normal reach of cycling to take to two wheels, or was it little more than wishful thinking by the media at the time?

Nobody doubts the recent increase in cycling in London and a smattering of other towns and cities, but there appears to be little or no correlation with sporting events

The media is lazy in its positioning of race events within the broader context. In its coverage of the Tour de France, for example, the Today programme talked at length about the effect of the event on cycling, but talked only to members of a road racing club about whether their numbers had grown. A Grand Prix at Silverstone is as unlikely inspire someone to buy a small city car to do the weekly shop. So why is so much store for everyday cycling put in sporting events?

It’s unhelpful if cycling in the popular consciousness is defined as carbon road bikes and Lycra because it has so much more to offer. One of the most powerful drivers for greater cycling is a cultural view of it as something utterly unremarkable and yet practical and comfortable to use. Like an IKEA sofa.

There’s nothing new about the Sladda bike. It’s pretty much the bike that continental Europeans have been using to make their lives easier and happier for decades, but our preoccupation with road bikes and MTBs means they have gone almost entirely overlooked. Perhaps IKEA are ideally placed to open our eyes.

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